Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China! Yes it’s kind of a big deal. We couldn’t have been more excited to embark on this momentous event. We booked our journey though a local travel agency and were incredibly impressed with the outcome in hindsight. They picked us up from the front door of our hotel early that morning around 8am. Together with another group of Dutch tourists, it was a fairly intimate group. We all got to know each other relatively well by the day’s end and couldn’t have been more impressed with our tour leader – a twenty something Chinese girl just out of university.

Great Wall of China

While we would hit three different sites in total by the day’s end, the Great Wall was first up on our agenda. Having heard disappointing stories from other travelers recounting how over run the Great Wall was with tourists during their visit, I was overtly trying to keep my expectations down. Lucky for us, our trusty tour guide insisted on an early start and took us to a fairly remote, and much less touristy section of the Great Wall. And less touristy it was. Only encountering less than a handful of other visitors the entire couple of hours we were there we practically had the entire section of Wall to ourselves. That said, after our climb up the first section of wall to the next signal tower, the five of us decided that was good enough for us.  The incline combined with the uneven rocky stairs left us all surprisingly winded. The climb was certainly worth it however, offering up amazing views of the surrounding countryside.

Summer Palace

We visited the Summer Palace next. The Summer Palace, as you can probably guess, was the summer retreat of the Imperial Family. It’s surrounded by Kunming Lake, a man made lake that is around 3 square kilometers in size. We were told that the Emperor had the lake dug so that he could stage naval battles and strategy simulations during the summer months.

The entire complex is quite gorgeous and it is no wonder why this place was chosen as the royal vacation home. Another interesting detail about the Palace was the Long Corridor, a covered walkway connecting the two primary structures on the palace grounds. This corridor is roughly 730 meters (about 1/2 a mile) in length and completely covered by paintings and ornamentation. We were told that nearly 14,000 distinctive paintings where commissioned for the Corridor and many noticeably dot both the ceiling and side panels of the passageway. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon stop and we were glad we added  the experience on to our visit to the Great Wall earlier that morning.

Temple of Heaven

Back in Beijing, we had just enough time to squeeze in one more sight – The Temple of Heaven. Surrounded by acres of green space, the entire Temple of Heaven complex is more of a local retreat than national a monument. Referred to as Beijing’s Central Park, on the day of our visit the park was filled with local Beijing residents of all ages enjoying the mild weather. Teams of elderly adults sat under the canopy of the buildings playing cards, mahjong, and other board games I had never seen before. We loved seeing Beijing in its natural element and count ourselves very fortunate to experience this cultural landmark in full swing.

At the center of the park are several monuments. Originally built by the Emperor as places of prayer and worship, the temples are highly ornate and sit beautifully against the larger landscape of the park.

 

Tags: Beijing, China, Featured Posts, full-image, Great Wall of China, Summer Palance, Temple of Heaven

Category: Asia, Blog, China, Destinations, Featured Posts, Pat's Blog